


Great Expectations

by QuoteMyFoot



Series: Word Prompts for Three Houses [10]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Class Differences, Gen, Introspection, Non-Explicit Sexual Harrassment, Reason #1672 why Fodlan is a terrible place, Social Commentary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22943386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteMyFoot/pseuds/QuoteMyFoot
Summary: Dorothea is rescued from the streets and brought into the glamourous world of the Mittelfrank Opera Company by Manuela. Despite Manuela's mentorship, Dorothea is eventually left to weather the attention of the noble patrons alone.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault & Manuela Casagranda
Series: Word Prompts for Three Houses [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535843
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28
Collections: Fanworks Club Monthly Prompts





	Great Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the daily prompts on r/FanFiction. **November 10 (“In the Style Of” Sunday): Dickensian.**
> 
> Double whammy! Also written for the Fanworks Club discord server February prompts: **Heartbreak.**

Dorothea couldn’t believe that this was her life now. She kept expecting to wake up cold and hungry, afraid to look at her feet for fear she might see the ugly taint of frostbite. She wouldn’t be the first person on the streets to lose fingers or toes to a particularly bad winter—

But when she awoke in the morning there were only silken sheets and soft pillows and a _nightgown._ Imagine, a gown that was only meant to be worn at night. And it was so beautiful for something that no one was meant to see! She could breakfast as much as she wanted, at least when she was better—Manuela said that she should stick to simple things for now and not overtax her stomach.

She was a singer, but she was just like a real physician! And she could do _magic!_ She was the most wonderful person Dorothea had ever met. _If I could be just like Manuela, life would really be perfect…_

For now, though, it was enough to be warm and fed. Manuela had promised that soon she’d start training Dorothea’s voice properly, and then she’d be able to perform onstage with the Mittelfrank Opera Company – how exciting! Dorothea had heard of them. They toured across the whole of Fódlan and even the Emperor and the most important nobles of the Empire came to watch their performances.

And _she_ was going to be watched by them too! Maybe one of the nobles would even fall in love with her and they’d get married… wouldn’t that be romantic? Lady Dorothea had such a lovely ring to it…

* * *

Dorothea’s debut to the stage was an explosive success. The tour ended up being one of the most popular in the company’s history, Manuela said, and Dorothea was the star attraction. Suddenly she could barely move for admirers and friends; at each new performance, she received more gifts than the last, more than one girl could ever hope to spend on her own! Jewels, delectable treats around the world, dresses in materials she’d never even heard of…

Dorothea loved all of them, but it was just so _much!_ If only they were more practical gifts, and then she could share them with the poor people in each city… but nobles were like that, she supposed. She made sure to share out what sweet treats she’d received, wondrous things she had never even _heard_ of when she lived on the streets, and to donate some of her newfound wealth to charitable causes.

Through all of it, Maneula was at her shoulder. She always seemed to know just the right thing to do so that Dorothea could help as many people as possible. She was just the best!

Manuela had even more admirers than Dorothea, and hers were more persistent. At least a dozen elaborate bouquets awaited outside her dressing room door before and after every performance, normally accompanied by just as many marriage proposals.

She didn’t understand why Manuela wasn’t married already if she had so many suitors, but maybe she was just waiting for the right man. Ooh… to fall in love in the opera house! Songs would be made of it! Naturally, Manuela’s husband would fall in love with her voice first, and then get to know her in person, and be even more hopelessly infatuated with her kindness, her wit, her talent, her compassion…

Manuela was so wonderful, of course, that she could afford to be choosy. Any man in the world would be lucky to have her as a wife.

Still… Dorothea couldn’t help but wonder why, if she was waiting for the right man, Manuela sighed and looked so sad over each proposal…

Was there something wrong with them?

* * *

She began to learn as she grew older – grew into a woman, or close enough for the likes of many nobles. What had started as doting pats on the head soon turned into encroaching on Dorothea’s personal space. Her lower back, her backside, her chest… these things suddenly seemed to not belong only to herself.

They _felt_ unlike herself too, with all the changes her body was undergoing. Manuela said that was normal, but it made it even easier to paste a smile on her face and pretend it was all happening to someone else, a girl who could laugh it off with a smile and a wink. A girl who wouldn’t cause problems for the opera company, which kept her in food and comfort, by offending their most valuable patrons.

That girl was still very popular – _the_ star, bar none, of the Mittelfrank Opera Company. That girl received love declarations and offers of marriage nearly daily, which she sadly declined with a small giggle. _“Thirteen is too young to be thinking of a husband! I must have some fun for myself first!”_

Dorothea watched Manuela laugh along with the playful touches and bawdy jokes of her own suitors, and thought she was beginning to understand why Manuela turned them all down. Sometimes, she had to turn them down quite forcefully.

Dorothea knew her own suitors expected might get less and less satisfied with her flirtatious but cagey answers, but she was never afraid. She knew Manuela was watching her just as carefully as Dorothea – watching over _her_.

* * *

Manuela became Dorothea’s mentor in a lot of things. She was the one who taught her how to manage her finances, how to negotiate, how to read a room, how to defend herself… Without her, Dorothea would be lost.

So would the whole company, in her opinion. Sometimes it felt like she was the only one who noticed how much Manuela did—she seemed to know all of their patrons like an old friend, always knowing the right thing to say to diffuse an argument to to cheer someone up. She kept on top of all the gossip and news, remembering birthdays and special occasions where the Mittelfrank could be hired for a private performance, by far their best money-maker.

Dorothea tried to copy her in small ways, even studying to remember people’s names and positions, but nothing she did compared to all of Manuela’s talents. Yet it was Dorothea who was the star. With each new tour, more and more men – and a few women, who were much more interesting prospects – approached her, and fewer and fewer Maneula.

“It’s because I’m getting old,” Manuela said dryly.

Dorothea didn’t see it. Manuela was more beautiful than most women half her age and more talented than any of the nobles and merchants who fawned over her. Any of them would be lucky if Manuela deigned to marry them! _Old—_ what nonsense.

But she couldn’t help but notice that Manuela’s suitors were less eligible than they had previously been—men who had begged to marry her at every opportunity to years now instead asked her to be their mistress (in polite, noble terms) whilst glancing at Dorothea out of the corner of her eye. They wanted her to escort them to dates and galas, to hang off their arm and laugh at their terrible jokes, to make them the envy of everyone else in the room.

They didn’t want Manuela, all the things that made Manuela wonderful. They wanted a _trophy._ And just because she was getting a little older, the trophy was looking less attractive—less impressive to their noble _friends._ It was stupid beyond words. Dorothea despised them.

But since she was only thirteen, she wasn’t old enough to replace Manuela in their eyes. Not yet.

Or so she thought. Manuela left to take a position at Garreg Mach, and Dorothea quickly became the ‘Mystical Songstress’, the centre of attention like never before. All the marriage proposals that had been Manuela’s over the years were now hersl the invites to incredible, debauched parties where she was intended to be an object of entertainment, not a guest; the unwanted flirting and touches that she had to put up with for the sake of the rest of the company, for the sake of her own future, the necessary contacts and benefactors—

She understood why Manuela left, tired of the rot concealed beneath the beautiful dresses and manners and people… but Dorothea desperately missed her.

It seemed like such a long time ago that she’d been a young girl, fresh off the streets and overwhelmed by the glamour of the new world she’d stepped into. It would be poetic to say that she’d rather return to the honest poverty of her previous life, but it would be a lie: there was nothing that terrified Dorothea more than the thought of being hungry and freezing and _unwanted_ again. To avoid it, she’d do anything. Even to stay here and be a plaything.

_If only I was as talented as Manuela, I could leave too…_

But Dorothea was just a street girl who could sing. So she put up her mask, and became the girl the nobles wanted—the beautiful trophy with no personality, no _self_ of her own, just the willingness to please and the inability to run away.

And when she broke, as she already knew she would, she’d be able to find herself a marriage to a tolerable man—not enough, perhaps, to keep her in the ridiculous, extravagant comfort the Mittelfrank patrons showered her with, but at least then she would only have to wear her mask for one person, and not the whole world.

(There had only ever been one person who liked the Dorothea without the mask, and she was well out of reach.)


End file.
